Stories and poems

"The metaphoric image of 'orphan lines' is a contrivance of the detached onlooker to whom the verbal art of continuous correspondences remains aesthetically alien. Orphan lines in poetry of pervasive parallels are a contradiction in terms, since whatever the status of a line, all its structure and functions are indissolubly interlaced with the near and distant verbal environment, and the task of linguistic analysis is to disclose the levels of this coaction. When seen from the inside of the parallelistic system, the supposed orphanhood, like any other componential status, turns into a network of multifarious compelling affinities.'Roman JAKOBSON, "Grammatical Parallelism and its Russian Facet", Language, 42/2, 1966, pp. 399-429, p. 428-429

Sunday, April 23, 2017

A Story for Spring

The Ice Princess and the Sun God

Once upon a time, in a dark
forest, there lived an Ice Princess. She had lived alone there for so long that
she didn’t remember who she was or where she had come from. All she knew was
that she loved the trees and the darkness and the shadows and that they kept
her alive. She loved the snow on the moss, the stones in the hard dirt, the
crunch of dead leaves and the branches that creaked and fell to the ground. She
couldn’t remember spring. It had been dark and cold for a long time. She had
forgotten about the cycles.

One morning she woke up in her stone castle and
wanted to go out for a walk in the gloom and admire the imprints of her boots
in the snow alongside the tracks of the creatures that lived with her in the
cold forest, but when she opened the door, she almost cried out in surprise.
Everything was sparkling! The icicles on the trees looked like silver shafts
and the snow crystals were glinting and dancing in some strange new light – the
Sun! She saw a beautiful golden man coming towards ther through the trees,
bringing the light as he came, making the ice start to drip and the plants look
alive again. She was amazed. The man was tall with golden hair and green eyes,
all dressed in green with a thick, brown wool cloak wrapped around his
shoulders.

As he approached, she thought he
was coming towards her to greet her, and she wanted to invite him in, ask him
to take off his cloak, and get to know him. But when he drew close to the
castle he turned abruptly away and started walking around the building as if he
hadn’t seen her. She ran after him, confused. It had been so long since she had
found someone to talk to and she worried that her voice might have frozen as
well. As she was running after him, she realized that just as he couldn’t see
her, he couldn’t hear her either. She reached out to touch him, but as she did
so she felt her body start to melt as well, as though to touch him was to die.
She wasn’t ready yet so she let him go.

After that, every day for a month,
the Sun God returned and every morning the Ice Princess watched him from the
doorway of her castle, making his careful way through the trees and branches,
slowly bringing light to everything and making the Earth green again. Every
night the Ice Princess went back to her icy bed and dreamt of being able to be
a part of spring, but she was scared of what she had felt when she touched him,
and of the change it presaged.

One morning, as she watched, the
Ice Princess noticed that the Sun God was not alone. He was with a beautiful
brown skinned girl who held his hand and laughed and kissed him as they walked.
She lay down on the warming ground and he joined her, bringing new life to the
Earth where they lay. As she watched, she silently screamed, for she recognized
her intense longing for him and yet she knew that they would never lie like
that together because she was not made of the Earth. His warmth would be too
much for her and she would disappear. Yet afterwards, as she watched them
leave, she suddently felt ready. She prepared herself, knowing that the next
time, if he came alone, she would reach out to him, at the risk of her own
unknown transformation. Even though she knew she would melt, she would at least
get to partake a little of his light.

The next day he came alone. He
knew it would be the last time that he would have to take care of this portion
of forest for the snow was almost gone. Only a few patches remained in the
shadow of the rocks. The birds were singing and the trees were humming with the
birth of new leaves unfurling. As she saw him make his rounds of the forest,
going in and out of the trees, she felt ready. She saw him come and ran to him,
throwing her slender white arms around him. As she did, she began to stream
down and around his body, creating little rivulets and forming a small stream
at his feet. The God felt blessed by this sudden, sweet shower and he blessed
in turn the river as he passed, watching it run over stones, twist and turn as
it found its path, gurgling through the forest.

It was then that the spirit of
the Ice Princess understood and was glad to have embraced her change, for
though she missed the cold solidity of her body, she loved the flowing feeling
of being a part of everything and of bringing another necessary element to the
life around her. In her own way, she also brought nourishment to the forest,
and like the Sun God, she was integral to spring. She infused the land with
creativity and growth. The Earth held her as the Sun sparkled on her burbling
and babbling, shining through the branches of the trees and the leaves. She
remembered the cycles and knew that the time would come when she would once
again find her icy home.